Just like Shiphrah and Puah, Jochebed and Miriam, Pharoah’s daughter and Zipporah, maybe you were placed in someone’s life for such a time as this. This Sermon “6 Courageous Mommas” was preached by Ps Vicki Brand on Sunday 12th May 2024.
Sermon Transcript
Good morning
Well, it’s Mother’s Day today, so I’d like to wish all the mums a very happy Mothers Day. Here at Cityview we recognise the many ways a woman can be a Mother. Of course, we have our wonderful biological mums & grandmas. But you may be a mother who has adopted a child or you may be a step mum. You’ve married into a family with existing children which you take responsibility for. You may be a selfless foster mum. Or maybe you’re a carer for someone, or an older sister who mothers the younger children (I call them honorary mums). Maybe you are someone who disciples or mentors another Christian in their walk with God. You’re a spiritual mother. Maybe you are part of a community where everybody looks out for each other and participates in keeping each other and the children safe and on track – a bit like the aunty who lives down the road, she’s actually a friend of the family who always steps in to help when the need arises. – Again – an honorary mum.
I remember as a child I had one of those and she came to our rescue many times.
You are all valued and needed. You’ve heard the saying: it takes a village to raise a child.
This saying originates from an African proverb and conveys the message that it takes many people (“the village”) to provide a safe, healthy environment for children, where children are given the security they need to develop and flourish, and to be able to realize their hopes and dreams. A bit like a church family.
Of course, this village approach would not be complete without the essential input of fathers and/or other male role models, but today my message is going to focus on the roles that six courageous women played in the life of a particular vulnerable baby boy.
A little baby boy who was marked for death on his birth, given up by his natural mother, through circumstances she couldn’t control and adopted and cared for by another woman until his adulthood.
Throughout his early life God used these courageous women to protect, nurture, educate, and provide for his needs. This little baby was Moses.
The name of my sermon today is “6 Courageous Mommas”.
Opening Prayer
You might wonder who were these women who were so important in the life of Moses? In fact, without them, he probably would have died before he could have become one of the greatest men in the bible. God’s chosen instrument to deliver the Israelites out of Egypt.
The first two were Hebrew midwives.
[Picture of Shiphrah and Puah]
At the beginning of the book of Exodus the Jews were plunged into a world of darkness. They were enslaved and afflicted.
The Egyptians had forgotten all that the Hebrew Patriach Joseph had done for Egypt. And now, instead of being welcome guests in their land, descendents of Joseph, who saved their country from famine, were feared and enslaved and put to hard labour. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied.
So, Pharoah, who feared the Jews would side with Egypt’s enemies, ordered the Hebrew midwives to kill all newborn baby boys – the girls he allowed to live.
But the bible tells us in Exodus 1:17 (NIV): The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live.
Exodus 1:18-19 (NIV) says: Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?” The midwives answered Pharoah, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.”
Egyptians called on the help of gods and magical objects during childbirth. They were very superstitious. Because of the association between supernatural forces and birthing, the midwives were a respected class. This is why the Pharoah would speak directly to them.
But these 2 midwives feared God and valued the lives of the children more than they feared Pharoah. They stood up to Pharoah and defied his decree. They chose to honour the Almighty by safely delivering the Jewish girls and boys.
These 2 courageous midwives were honoured by God by having their names included in the bible. Shiphrah and Puah.
So, the Jews continued to increase, and Pharoah was not happy. So, he added another decree that every boy born was to be thrown into the Nile River.
It was during these troubled times that Moses was born to Jochebed, his mother and Amram, his father. The midwives refused to kill the child at birth, but he could still be discovered and thrown into the Nile by the Egyptians to drown or be eaten by crocodiles!
Jochebed defied Pharoah’s order and hid Moses for three months as she nursed him and cared for the child she loved. But it became increasingly difficult to keep his birth a secret. Children are not quiet. So out of a mother’s love and an innate desire to give her boy the chance of life, she fashioned a papyrus basket, lined with tar and pitch to make it waterproof – I think it would also have been doused in Jochebed’s tears.
[Picture of Jochebed Miriam]
She put the little boy in the basket and carefully placed it among the reeds near the shore.
What a heartbreaking decision for a mother to have to make. But I think Jochebed was a very shrewd and intelligent woman, and I think she knew exactly where she was placing that basket and who might come along and have compassion on the child.
Jochebed had directed her daughter Miriam, Moses’ sister, to keep watch and see what happened to the child.
And as it would happen, Pharoah’s daughter, (the daughter of the man who made the order to throw Hebrew baby boys into the Nile), came across this baby when she went down to the river to bathe.
[Picture of Pharoah’s daughter]
When she saw that baby boy, she was filled with compassion and pity. She knew immediately it was a Hebrew, yet she decided there and then to defy her father’s wishes and save the boy.
Miriam, who had been watching over her baby brother among the bulrushes on the banks of the Nile was quick and intelligent like her mother. She approached the Egyptian princess and asked if she would like her to get a Hebrew woman to nurse the child for her.
The princess agreed and Miriam quickly fetched her mother, Moses’ mother. Pharoah’s daughter then commanded Jochebed to nurse the child and bring him back to her when he was older.
Jochebed was basically ordered to take care of her vey own precious baby and raise him with his biological family for a period of time. So Jochebed and Miriam and Moses’ faither Amram and brother Aaron were all able to enjoy their very special baby boy as well as play a part in shaping the future deliverer of Israel. Then they handed the young child over to Pharoah’s daughter to continue to protect, educate and raise the young Moses to adulthood.
It took all 5 of those courageous women who were willing to defy the orders of the day, that is, “kill all Hebrew baby boys”, to keep the baby Moses alive and give him the opportunity to grow into adulthood and ultimately into his destiny.
The two midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, who by the way, their names mean Fair and Splendid. And they certainly were fair and splendid people.
Shiphrah and Puah feared God and therefore believed that God’s moral demands outweighed Pharoah’s legal demands. Author Francine Klagsbrun said that the midwives’ refusal to follow the Pharoah’s genocidal instructions “may be the first known incident of civil disobedience in history”.
Colossians 3:23-24 NIV says: Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.
They didn’t just talk the talk; they walked the walk.
It seems though that God had set people in the right place at the right time to protect his purpose and his plans.
Maybe Shiphrah and Puah were called to their work in Egypt at that time for such a time.
You know, most midwives, at that time, were barren themselves. Shiphrah and Puah didn’t have any children.
Yet they risked their lives to bless all the Hebrew mums and dads with girl and boy children. Their fear of the Lord was greater than their fear of Pharoah.
And because of their bravery and obedience to God, the Lord blessed these two childless midwives by opening their wombs and giving them a family.
Matthew 6:33 (NIV) says: But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.
Jochebed, Moses’ mother was also a woman whose faith in her God was rock solid, along with that of her husband.
Hebrews 11:23 (NIV) tells us: By faith Moses’ parents hid him for 3 months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the King’s edict.
God had told Abraham that his children (the Israelites or Jews) would be enslaved in Egypt, but that the time would come when he would release them and lead them to the promised land.
When Moses was born, his parents could see that he was special, that God had a special purpose for him. When Jochebed couldn’t hide him any longer and placed Moses in the basket amongst the reeds, she was literally entrusting her child to the care of God.
She knew God would use her son, therefore, she trusted God enough to let her son go. (It’s the same kind of trust that Abraham had, when God instructed him to sacrifice his only son Isaac).
Hebrews 11:6 (NIV) says: And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
And what was Jochebed’s reward? Pharoah’s daughter found the baby and felt pity for him. She decided to adopt Moses.
Miriam, who was a quick witted, intelligent and courageous child, and was watching over Moses from the reeds, boldly went up to the princess and offered to get a Hebrew wet nurse for the baby. Her quick thinking returned Moses to Jochebed and the family to be raised and enjoyed and loved for the first formative years of his life. And the princess paid her to care for her own son!
You can bet that those years were treasured, but also used wisely in giving Moses as much an understanding of the true God as his little brain at the time could take in.
When the time came for him to be weaned, Jochebed returned Moses to Pharoah’s daughter, to be raised in the ways of the Egyptians.
Jochebed could have tried to run off with Moses or hide him again. But she didn’t do any of those things.
She trusted that God had a purpose for Moses, that she was a part of preparing Moses for that purpose, and so it seemed was Pharoah’s daughter. She handed him over, she let go and let God.
Pharoah’s daughter adopted Moses and cared for him. She made sure that this Jewish baby grew up with an intimate knowledge of Egyptian beliefs, culture and sciences.
How useful that would be for Moses when he grew up, returned to Egypt and confronted the Pharoah on behalf of God and the Israelites.
He also grew up in a palace. Maybe the very same palace that he would one day perform miracles in. He was intimately aware of the protocols of palace life.
The most amazing thing is that Pharoah’s daughter decided to go against her father’s edicts to kill all Jewish baby boys, and actually adopted one and brought it right into the very heart of the palace.
That took courage. I imagine she herself could have been killed for such a heinous crime. But she was brave. She loved him, she cared for him and she educated him.
She should have thrown him back into the Nile River to drown as a baby, – she was his enemy afterall. But instead, she drew him out of the water, protected this child and gave him a safe haven to grow and mature – even though it meant putting herself in a dangerous position.
Proverbs 16:7 (NIV) says: When the Lord takes pleasure in anyone’s way, he causes their enemies to make peace with them.
There are ways to turn enemies into friends, such as praying for them, asking God to bless them, doing good to them, and loving them.
I have a theory. Jochebed, Moses biological mother, came up with the plan (most assuredly inspired by God) to place Moses in a place where she knew the childless princess would go to bathe.
I think she and Miriam formulated this plan and prayed to God that Pharoah’s daughter would be captivated by the baby and take it for her own.
Ever since baby Moses was born, Jochebed did everything right to keep him alive. A lot of that would have been praying to her Heavenly Father for wisdom and protection and favour.
I think she would have also been praying for the princess, as soon as the plan was devised, well before Moses was placed in a basket amongst the reeds of the Nile River.
And then with Miriam’s help, she provided the princess with a way to nurse the baby and raise it till he was weaned.
So once the family could no longer protect Moses, the princess took over. I also think Jochebed and Miriam understood that Pharoah’s daughter put her life at risk, the same as them, to save Moses. I think that they would have been very grateful to her and continue to ask God to bless her.
None of that is in the bible, but that’s my thoughts.
So, Moses grew up amongst the Egyptians, but one day when he was about 40 years of age, he saw an Egyptian abusing a Hebrew and impulsively, Moses killed the Egyptian.
Eventually, fearing for his life, he fled into the Midian desert, where he stood up for seven young women beside a well, trying to draw water for their flocks, who were being harassed by other shepherds. It seemed that Moses couldn’t stand wrongdoing against anyone, not just his own people.
In thanks, their father Jethro invited him to stay in their camp and he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah as a wife. Moses actually stayed for forty years tending his father-in-law’s sheep. Which when you think about it, was marvellous training for tending his Heavenly Father’s sheep (the Jews) in the wilderness for the next 40 years.
One day while tending his father in law’s sheep, Moses was drawn to a bush that was burning, yet not being consumed. It was there that he had his encounter with God who commissioned him to lead his people out of captivity in Egypt and take them to the Promised land, armed with only a shepherd’s staff and God. Which of course, was more than enough!
On the way back to Egypt with Zipporah, his wife, and his two sons, however, God intercepted him and was about kill him!
Exodus 4:24-26 (NIV) explains: At a lodging place on the way, the Lord met Moses and was about to kill him. But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it. “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me,” she said. So the Lord let him alone. (At that time she said “bridegroom of blood,” referring to circumcision).
Why would God send Moses on a mission and then try to kill him? And why would circumcising his son satisfy God?
Well before Moses could demand Pharoah’s obedience to God’s command to release his people from slavery, Moses had to learn obedience himself.
He had failed to circumcise his own son. Moses, as a shepherd in the desert of Midian, had apparently given up being an Israelite. Circumcision was the sign of the covenant between God and the descendants of Abraham. And Genesis 17:14 (NIV) says: Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people, he has broken my covenant.
[Picture – Zipporah cuts foreskin]
Many commentators believe that God struck Moses with a life threatening illness, which is why Zipporah had to circumcise her son rather than Moses. Zipporah was not happy about this operation and she angrily dropped the bloody foreskin on the feet of Moses and said: “You are a bridegroom of blood to me”. When she had said those words, God relented and released Moses from his affliction.
Some commentaries say you could interpret what she said to Moses also as “you are a husband of horrors”, “A mate of misery”, or a “groom of gore”.
She was very unhappy at circumcising their son! This was not a part of her culture. Can you imagine what courage it took for her to go against her own culture and motherly instincts to protect her child from suffering, but also to understand what was required now to save her husband’s life.
Her husband, whom God had chosen to lead a nation, took precedence. So, she took a flint and did the deed, ever so begrudgingly. If she had not, Moses would have died.
I guess you could say, at the moment, at least, she feared God. And the fear of God drove her to do the right thing and save her husband.
Zipporah is hardly mentioned again after the “bridegroom of blood” incident and we are not sure what her relationship with Moses was like or if she every truly accepted the God of Moses.
But one thing you cannot deny, if she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, circumcise her son, then God would have had to find someone else to lead the Israelites out of slavery from Egypt.
Moses would have died.
Over the course of the first 80 years of his life, it took 6 courageous women, 6 courageous mommas, to keep Moses alive – Shiphrah and Puah, the midwives who feared God more than they feared the Pharoah and his commands and refused to kill him at birth. Jochebed – the mother of Moses and Miriam – Moses’ older sister who could see that Moses was a part of God’s plans and purposes for their people, and chose to fear and trust God and hide him, then release the child into God’s providential care. Pharoah’s daughter, who loved the child she found more than she feared her father and took him into her protective care. And Zipporah, his wife, who went against her own deeply felt beliefs and circumcised their son to save the life of her husband.
If just one of these women had shrunk back in fear, Moses would have died. But they didn’t and Moses lived to fulfill the plans the Lord had for him and lead his people out of slavery and into freedom.
Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV) says: “For I know the plans I have for you”, declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future”.
God had plans for Moses, but they took years to eventuate. In the meantime, everything he went through equipped him to undertake God’s task.
He learned the ways of his God through his parents and siblings, before also being trained up in Egyptian ways and learning. And also even palace protocols, because he was brought up in a palace. Then he fled to the desert and learned about tending sheep. Moses had to mature, he needed also to learn humility, obedience and trust in God.
God’s plans can sometimes look like they aren’t coming to pass because of failures and opposition. But often these things are the very things that make us stronger, mature, learn to trust and obey God.
Moses took 80 years to be ready for God to use him. And it took 6 courageous women, who were prepared to intervene on his behalf to ensure his survival before he reached is potential.
When I look around this church, I see Christians who God has a plan or purpose for. Every one of you. The children also – who knows what amazing plans God has for them.
But like Moses, we all need other people to help us reach our potential in God. Maybe we don’t need people to risk their lives to save us from evil governments – well not here in Australia anyway. But sometimes we have to intervene when we see bad things happening. Either physically or by reporting things to authorities. And we all need help to mature and grow in God and stay on the narrow path to eternity.
The devil still wants to kill your Christianity which in turn would lead to your eternal death. That’s why it’s important to belong to a church family and to fellowship with other Christians.
Paul says in Romans 15:2 (NLT): We should help others do what is right and build them up in the Lord.
The Message version puts it this way: Each one of us needs to look after the good of the people around us, asking ourselves, “How can I help?”
Just like Shiphrah and Puah, Jochebed and Miriam, Pharoah’s daughter and Zipporah, maybe you were placed in someone’s life for such a time as this. Maybe your input, your protection, your fellowship, your words of wisdom, your support, is part of God’s plan for someone else to be able to grow and mature and step into their destiny with God.
Each one of us needs to look after the good of the people around us, asking ourselves “How can I help?”.
Closing Prayer